The Double Dangerous Book for Boys

by Conn Iggulden, Arthur Iggulden, Cameron Iggulden, Kirby Heyborne (Read by)

Overview

Conn Iggulden returns with more information, insights, and diversions for boys from eight to eighty. This companion volume to The Dangerous Book for Boys includes more than seventy new chapters and important skills, fascinating historical information, and essential stories, including:

• How to pick a padlock
• Making a Flying Machine
• Tying a Windsor Knot
• Advice from Fighting Men
• Questions About the Law
• Chess Openings
• Making Perfume
• Maps of Historic Empires: British, Ottoman, Genghis, Persian, Medes, Babylonian, Alexander
• Great Speeches
• Forgotten Explorers
• How to Wire a Plug and Make a lamp
• Writing a Thank You Letter
• Polishing Shoes

Parents looking to get their kids off screens can use this book to fill weekend afternoons and summer days with wonder, excitement, adventure, and fun—learn to build go-carts and electromagnets, identify insects and spiders, and fly the world’s best paper airplanes. This charming and practical guide will ignite the imagination and stimulate curiosity, and provide grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers the opportunity to deepen their bonds. Conn Iggulden has at last put together a second wonderful collection that is the essence of boyhood.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781094132457
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	12/19/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Conn Iggulden is the acclaimed author of the Emperor novels, which chronicle the life of Julius Caesar, and the Conqueror series, which is based on the lives of Mongol warlords Genghis, Ogedai, and Kublai Khan. He is also the coauthor of the bestselling nonfiction work The Dangerous Book for Boys. He lives with his wife and two children in Hertfordshire, England.

Kirby Heyborne is a musician, actor, and professional narrator. Noted for his work in teen and juvenile audio, he has garnered over twenty Earphones Awards. His audiobook credits include Jesse Kellerman’s The Genius, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, and George R. R. Martin’s Selections from Dreamsongs.

Editorial Reviews

2019-08-26
A new compendium of helpful skills, projects, puzzles, quotes, historical anecdotes, and other miscellany that add quality to life…if not necessarily length.

"The accumulation of knowledge is one of life's subtle pleasures," writes the co-author of The Dangerous Book for Boys (2007), collaborating now with his sons instead of his brother Hal. In that tongue-in-cheek spirit they offer up a fresh array of rewarding reading—beginning with detailed, practical instructions for picking a lock followed by an account of the experiences of Ernest Shackleton that highlights his extraordinary leadership skills. Tucking in well-placed photos or diagrams, they go on to recommend poems to memorize, describe select famous world empires and how to make lasagna, and, just to prove that the title is not mere hyperbole, suggest numerous ways of provoking "Interesting Chemical Reactions" with easily available materials. For what it's worth, the authors seem to have tested all of these activities themselves, and they add cautionary notes based on their experiences. Many of this import's U.K.-specific entries have been Americanized, but some, such as how to get a shotgun or wire an electric plug have not and may be of less use (not to say even more "danger") on this side of the pond. With very rare exceptions the historical incidents, figures, and cultural defaults are white and Eurocentric, but at least girls willing to disdain the title and brave the pervasive male gaze are not specifically discouraged from harvesting what they might.

Salutary fare for readers who, like the authors, believe that "we should all know a few basics." (Nonfiction. 12-15)

Kirkus Reviews